FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2015 file photo, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, center, reviews honor guards, as he takes part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of Unknown Soldier outside of Kremlin wall in Moscow, Russia. Making his first official visit to Washington since taking office in 2014, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissis meeting this week with U.S. President Donald Trump would be a significant step in the international rehabilitation of the general-turned-politician who was kept out of the Obama White House. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, Pool, File) less

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2015 file photo, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, center, reviews honor guards, as he takes part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of Unknown Soldier outside of Kremlin ... more

Photo: Ivan Sekretarev, Associated Press

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President Trump greets Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at the White House.

President Trump greets Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at the White House.

Photo: STEPHEN CROWLEY, NYT

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Trump lavishes praise on Egyptian president

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WASHINGTON — Ever since he seized power in a military takeover nearly four years ago, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has been barred from the White House. But President Trump made clear Monday that the period of ostracism was over as he hosted el-Sissi and pledged unstinting support for the autocratic ruler.

“We agree on so many things,” Trump said as he sat beside el-Sissi in the Oval Office. “I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President el-Sissi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.”

In that one moment, Trump underscored a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy since he took office. While his predecessors considered authoritarians like el-Sissi to be distasteful and at times shied away from them, Trump signaled that he sees international relations through a transactional lens.

If Egypt can be a partner in the battle against international terrorism, then in Trump’s calculation, that is more important to the United States than concerns over its brutal suppression of domestic dissent.

El-Sissi arrived from Cairo with a list of financial, security and political requests, but effectively he got what he really wanted in the six minutes that news media photographers were permitted in the Oval Office to record the visit that President Barack Obama had denied him. The picture of the general-turned-president in the White House, hosted by a U.S. leader lavishing praise on him, was the seal of approval he had long craved, the validation of a strongman on the world’s most prominent stage.

The scene provided a powerful counterpoint to el-Sissi’s many critics, in Egypt and abroad, for whom he is known as the leader of the military coup that removed an elected president from power, oversaw a vicious security operation in which hundreds of protesters were gunned down in the streets of Cairo and has cemented his authority by filling prisons with his opponents while strangling the free press.

It was the first visit by an Egyptian president to Washington since 2009, when the guest was the autocratic former President Hosni Mubarak, then in the waning years of his rule — an era now viewed by many Egyptians as a time of relative freedom, prosperity and security.

Mubarak was pushed out in 2011 by a wave of street protests and succeeded, in a democratic election, by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi. Taking advantage of popular discontent with Morsi two years later, the military, led by el-Sissi, then a general, took power and el-Sissi became president in a pro forma election that awarded him 97 percent of the vote.